Saturday

Funny day here, weather-wise.  Cloudy early, some showers, then heat and humidity, more clouds, and periods of rain this evening.  Always humidity in the air.

We've had quite a bit of RAGBRAI traffic through town the last few days.  The ride starts tomorrow morning in Glenwood.  I guess that there's a segment of riders who meet up in the destination town and then take other transportation to the western border.  I know that they have a few nuts who actually ride to the western border and turn around to make the RAGBRAI ride back to the Mississippi.

The TdF ends tomorrow morning in Paris.  The stage is generally ceremonial, although the sprinters normally have a last shot at a stage win.  My bet would be on Mark Cavendish, the Manxman.  He's won the last stage each of the last two years.  The overall winner should be Cadel Evans.  He performed best among the contenders in the individual time trial today, as expected, and has a couple of minute lead.  He could only lose if he crashes, or has some other catastrophic problem.. Since I have been following the Tour, nothing has happened on the last day.

Sounds like 3 and Herky had an exciting day making their way from NYC to Reno.  (I am told that this is a true pic of 2 and 3 at the Incline Village Hyatt this evening.  I'll update it when a suitable replacement is received.)  Travel is such a pain.  The airlines are uniformly unreliable.  Surprised that it happened on an early Saturday morning.  My experience has been that it's a 50-50 thing, so I'm guessing that the return flight will be fine.

Have I mentioned here that my cycling computer has been stuck on the function to display kilometers as opposed to miles?  I have to multiply everything by 60% to convert my digital feedback to Anglo figures. There's some combination of buttons to press to get the output shown in English.  I need to pull the owners manual for the computer off the Internet and get the sequence.  (I had the problem with the Buick a few year back, but finally opened the Owner's Manual and it was an easy fix.)

I've been thinking that I am updating my will prior to my departure for Espana.  I did the same thing before 2 and I went to Italy.  I'm double-checking the instructions that I left back then.  Since I have such a large estate, I want to make sure that it will be appropriately divided.  Mt. Rose is still in the plan.  But I'm considering having the stone placed in Ottumwa alongside Margaret and Phil rather than at The Arsenal. Opinions, anyone?  Bueler?

One of my observations while walking The Winniferous has been a really nice flag display on a corner lot South of me on the street that parallels Maplecrest.  (This one isn't it, but you get the idea.)  I spoke with the owner the other night and she said that they had no hassle from the city or the power company.  They have the US, the USAF and Iowa flags.  And a well-designed/constructed, modest rock garden around the poles.  It's a good presentation and I may shamelessly copy it.

So I'm doing DeWitt in the AM with my pal Pete.  I'll get back on the blog from the coffee shop around noon.  There'd better be pics from the para-sailing!

And remember to...

BCOT